Silver Scroll Awards 2011
Most people arrived at this year’s APRA Silver Scroll Awards already picking ‘Love Love Love’ by Avalanche City as the winner. The song is catchy enough for the mainstream audience, but apparently also has indie cred because the guy used to be in a hardcore band and sometimes plays a banjo. Or something like that.
But we had our media passes so we thought we’d see what else was on offer at the awards. We arrived a little late and the crowd was already milling about the free bar. Lots of gelled hair and messy but well-trimmed emo haircuts. Who were these people? Record execs mainly. But there were some musos too. After we’d had one beer they started ringing the bell to get us inside. Everyone ignored it and finally they closed the bar to force everyone into the main room. A few leftover musicians checked that the last wine bottles on the counter were empty and then it was time to start the show…
Or was it. After a brief introduction, they informed the audience that dinner would be served. This left us media-types with an hour to kill and only a free bar to occupy our time. Dangerous! But somehow we got through it.
Then there were finally a few awards. Tyna Keelan beat out Tiki Taane for the Maioha Award for contemporary Maori music. Maybe the name isn’t familiar but you would’ve heard his guitar on some of Scribe’s early singles (he played on Tiki Taane’s album too, so that kinda shows that he certainly deserved the award). Then a composer named Lyell Cresswell took out the contemporary composer awards and the rendition by the Heavy Metal Ninjas (a side group started by members of Kora) had a noisy atonal nastiness to it. Hello Sailor were inducted into the Hall of Fame, with every member of the band giving a speech … before Gin Wigmore and Steve Abel (along with his band) did an odd version of their track ‘Blue Lady’.
The finalists for the main award were also covered by other artists (as is standard for the APRA awards). The Benka Boradovsky Bordello band did a jerky folk version of ‘Love Love Love’. Then Orchestra of Spheres did a surprisingly tame cover of “Blanket” by Bachelorette. Cut Off Your Hands showed that their unhappiness isn’t a world away from Delaney Davidson. But so you don’t feel left out we grabbed some short clips of our favourites (only one minute allowed per song apparently)…
So here’s Scratch 22 doing The Adults:
And here’s Homebrew doing UMO. If you’re wondering what they’re doing at the start, they’re stealing drinks from Mark Kneebone and DJ Sir-vere’s table at the front of the room.
The other two awards of the evening went to Brooke Fraser for ‘Something in the Water’ being the most played song in New Zealand (apparently it’s gone top ten in Germany too). While Neil Finn won most played song overseas again (they didn’t even bother announcing this one). John Rowles closed the night with a Vietnam War-assisted rendition of ‘Cheryl Moana Marie’. When the crowd stood to applaud them, he made his band redo the last chorus. Now that’s a guy who knows how to milk it for all it’s worth…
Hussein reckons I was negligent for not posting the Gin Wigmore/Steve Abel cover as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWel_An1oP4
Sorry for the dutch tilt, but I was keen to show the nice animation by Tanja Jade (Misery) in the background.
Great review Gareth – and good to get audio/video of the covers the following day. Always seemed kinda exclusive and mean that those covers get played for a drunk/disinterested industry audience and never heard again, when plenty would be total fan-nerd gold. Couldn’t they be iTunes-ed for charity or something?
Thanks. And I agree that some of the tunes were worth releasing (some maybe less so).
The Herald did try to stream the event and a few people I know watched it, but apparently it cut out a couple of times. The link now seems to be dead:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/music/news/article.cfm?c_id=264&objectid=10751408
I have a few more short clips of the other songs so maybe I’ll put them up later today.
Put up Heavy Metal Ninjas vid!
Okay then, here’s the Heavy Metal Ninja’s version of Lyell Cresswell’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra:
Nice review Gareth, and a great turnaround time too.
I guess you weren’t nearly as drunk as you looked when leaving
(o_0)zzZZzZz
Nah, Gareth’s got that dissolvable Disprin. He just gave me some.
Hydrodol all day #waters
Orchestra of Spheres flipped my lid. Thanks to the Huss-hound for the light.
Hi Gareth,
One of my friend mentioned about this song that was performed during the award ceremony. He does not know the name of the song however, all he mentioned about that song was that it was a song sung in maori and english. There was a lead vocalist (female) and three side singers. My friend spoke very highly of that song. Can you please let me know which band it was? Please.
Thank you
I think the song you’re talking about is “Ko Koe” which won the Maioha Award for contemporary Maori music. It’s by Tyna Keelan, but was performed by the singer Sandy Mill on the night of the awards (with musical accompaniment by Joost Langeveld). I don’t think there’s anywhere you can hear this version (unless APRA take up Duncan’s good idea above). I don’t think the original is even out yet, but I assume it’ll be available digitally soon enough and in the meantime you can hear some of his older work on his myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/tynaakanatural/music
Hope that helps.
Hi Gareth
Yes all the videos of the performances in their entirety will be available shortly once we’ve given them a proper edit and quick mix to make them sound ok. Not sure that we can make the recordings available for sale but the videos will be available to view at least. I’ll send you the link when its sorted.
As for who was there, of the 380 people seated for the dinner 243 were apra members(musicians) not record co exec’s – they don’t exist anymore and from where I sat everyone was certainly drunk but never disinterested …
AH
Anyone know where this is available to buy?
Great, do put up the link when you get it. I didn’t mean to give the impression that there were more industry people than musicians or anything like that – I was more passing comment on the parade of rock’n'roll hairstyles from throughout the decades and whether these represented the industry-types or just musicians whose bands I don’t know/like is something I’ll leave as a moot point.
But in any case, it was a very entertaining show so respect to Karl Steven and your team at APRA for putting it together.
Thanks a lot Gareth.. That was really helpful… Eagerly awaiting the video of the performance.
So, just for the record. The Herald’s video for “Ko Koe” is up, along with all the others on their site…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/video.cfm?c_id=1503078&gal_cid=1503078&gallery_id=121651
Maybe Mr. Healey might want to comment on the rumour that John Rowles thought the Vietnam War were “unprofessional” as a backing band and didn’t deserve to be paid?
Hi Sam …VW did a great job (they only played the song for the first time with him at soundcheck that afternoon)… from what I saw JR had a great time and loved it too.
I don’t think bands don’t get paid to play at Silver Scrolls anyway?.
Nah, they do.
They do, but (as a one-night-only-band-member) I can confirm that Mr Rowles soaked up the entirety of the budget for this particular performance.
If he really did complain, it was probably actually because of me. Turns out he didn’t want someone singing his exact melody BETTER THAN HIM. Jeez.
You did look pretty cool up there, though I think it might’ve been your sister that was out singing him.
Hi Gareth … a friend stumbled across this and asked me if i played guitar on some of Tiki’s tracks – which i haven’t so i thought i’d check it out.
I never played guitar on any of Scribes singles but we have rapped together on a few tracks over the years. I did playt he guitar parts on -Stop The Music- by Pmoney feat: Scribe with PNC on the hook – and if i remember correctly i think the guy from ElemenoP mimed my guitar parts in the video.
Heres a link to the song i won the Silver Scroll Maioha award for – its the english version though … I’ll leave it up for free download for a little….
http://soundcloud.com/thenok/ease-my-mind
I’ll link the Te Reo version when i find it haha
Thanks for the clarification Tyna. I thought Oscar said that you’d played guitar on the Tiki Taane album when he gave you the award, so that’s where that rumour came from. And yes, that P Money track was the one I was thinking of, so you’re right that calling it a Scribe track is a bit misleading.
Hey, if anyone knows where i can see the live performance of my mum Sandy Mill singing Ko Koe by Tyna Keenan, please put a link up for me! have been looking for it since that night and it has been a failed attempt to find it anywhere! Thanks.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/video.cfm?c_id=1503078&gal_cid=1503078&gallery_id=121651